Creating a Republican Culture1790-1820

Chapter 8

Entrepreneurial Spirit

• Factors of Production:

“If movement and the quick succession of

sensations and ideas constitute life, here one lives a hundred

fold more than elsewhere; here, all is

circulation, motion, and boiling agitation.”

“Experiment follows experiment; enterprise follows enterprise, riches and

poverty follow.”

Banking

– Government sponsored land banks and credit from suppliers

• – Bank of North America (1781)

• – Bank issued notes– Commercial loans

• – 1816 – $68m in banknotes in circulation– – 1821 - $45m in banknotes in circulation

Another Revolution Affects America

• Manufacturing moved from – Power-driven machinery– Specialized workers

• Industrial Revolution– Social and economic reorganization

• Started in Great Britain

Transportation

• – 1816 – 1831

• – – –

The Commonwealth System

• The American state legislatures passed measures they thought would be “of great public utility” and increase the “common wealth.”

• Was this republican?

Cumberland (National Road)

Conestoga Covered WagonsConestoga Covered Wagons

Conestoga Trail, 1820sConestoga Trail, 1820s

Erie Canal, 1820sErie Canal, 1820s

Begun in 1817; completed in 1825Begun in 1817; completed in 1825

Erie Canal SystemErie Canal System

Robert Fulton & the Steamboat

Robert Fulton & the Steamboat

1807: The 1807: The ClermontClermont

Principal Canals in 1840Principal Canals in 1840

Inland Freight RatesInland Freight Rates

Be careful reading the Y axis!

"The American System"

• 1815 Madison urged Congress to develop a plan to unify the country

• Henry Clay’s American System:– A strong banking system, to provide

easy and abundant credit– A protective tariff (20-25%)

• The Tariff of 1816– 1st protective tariff

– A network of roads and canals • Funded from tariff

*President Madison vetoed the bill to give states aid for infrastructure– Felt intrastate projects were unconstitutional 

Would unite the US and make it self-sufficient

The Missouri Compromise

• introduced the compromise that decided whether or not Missouri would be admitted as a slave state.  Congress decided to: – Admit as a in 1820– , which was a part of Massachusetts, was

to be admitted as a separate, – Therefore, there were slave states and free

states• The Missouri Compromise by Congress

banned slavery in the remaining territories in the Louisiana Territory north of the line of , except for Missouri.

Slavery and the Sectional Balance

• Amendment

And provided, That the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been fully [duly] convicted; and that all children born within the said State, after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age of twenty-five Years.

The Missouri Compromise

The Second Great AwakeningThe Second Great Awakening

“Spiritual Reform From Within”

[Religious Revivalism]

Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality

In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country… Religion was the foremost of the political institutions of the United States.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1832

The Rise of Popular ReligionThe Rise of Popular Religion

The ranges of tents, the fires, reflecting light…; the candles and lamps illuminating the encampment; hundreds moving to and fro…;the preaching, praying, singing, and shouting,… like the sound of many waters, was enough to swallow up all the powers of contemplation.

Charles G. Finney(1792 – 1875)

Charles G. Finney(1792 – 1875)

“soul-shaking” conversion

Converted had a duty to spread the word about personal salvation

Second Great AwakeningRevival Meeting

Second Great AwakeningRevival Meeting

“The Benevolent Empire”1825 - 1846

“The Benevolent Empire”1825 - 1846

Second Great Awakening• 1790 into 1840s• Rejection of

Calvinist idea of predestination

• Emphasized individual responsibility for salvation